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Far from the Maddow crowd: Karmic relief

Time for some gratuitous cuteness. It's bad karma to keep Rachel Maddow at the top of your blog too long, even if it DOES elicit a Michelle Malkin "Buzzworthy" link. Above, Earl Grey hurries off on his rounds after a quick nip on the front porch. He had stood in the open doorway as if to enter the house. After focussed high-level talks, he agreed to stay outside in exchange for a spot of the weed.

While Earl snorted and chawed, Sweet Tiny Pea sat mysteriously nearby amidst the lower branchlings of the privet and lilacs — a heraldic lioness in a William-Morris-inspired tapestry — her studied indifference acting on her lover like another dose of catnip. Drawn irresistibly to her side, he paused to drink in her fragrance and mark her bower with his scent.

Note large fur clump along Earl's lower midsection halfway between the two white paws. At first we'd thought it was just a grooming issue, what with his luxuriantly fluffy coat, but no. Looking more closely, we realized he had sustained a battle wound, the fur having been apparently ripped right off his hide. Seems to be healing okay. Not much we can do, given that he's unapproachable beyond an occasional nose meep to our outstretched hand. Chelsea Cats are tough.

Crossposted at Riehl World View with some tweaking as "Dan's not here so I can say anything Muwahaha …"

Rand Paul energizes Teabagger Derangement Syndrome sufferers

"Like babes they will go into battle," Mark Tapscott predicts for the "many Tea-Party-linked candidates whose inexperience in political combat with the media will spark … bloodbaths" like the one currently roiling the political waters as Kentucky senatorial primary winner Rand Paul makes it easy for Rachel Maddow (above) and fellow Teabagger Derangement Syndrome (TDS) sufferers to play gotcha over the candidate's clumsy commentary debating the merits of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. James Joyner encapsulates:

It’s fine for libertarian bloggers to debate this issue among themselves, but a politician can’t allow himself to be trapped into a debate where he ends up defending segregated lunch counters in an election in the South. The damage is done, and these clips will follow Paul from now to November, but he needs to put this issue behind him. Then, he needs to take a few days off.

Early out of the gate this morning, Dan Riehl's take was unnerving:

And spare me the whining over principles. The vast majority of voters don't take the time to consider these issues that deeply. And nothing Paul supporters say or do is going to change that. The Constitutional battle was fifty years ago. It was lost. But Paul doesn't have the good political sense to stop fighting it.

The question is, will the TDS sufferers manage to make the racism/fringe-element label stick this time? Among fellow travelers its a done deal, of course, confirming what they've wanted to believe all along:

If this is indicative of the intellectual depth of the Tea Party and their values, then democrats have nothing to worry about and republicans have more to worry about than Solomon.

A post-primary Rasmussen poll had Paul with a 25-point lead over Democrat Jack Conway, but if the Rachel Maddows have their way, will the Rand Paul narrative as bellwether for the Tea Party spin out of control, its toxic exudations smearing us all in the minds of Riehl's vast majority of voters who "don't take the time to consider these issues that deeply"?

Note: Our friend and sometime mentor Dan Riehl has invited us to join Melissa Clouthier and Lorie Byrd as guest blogger at Riehl World View. Awesome company on an awesome stage. We'll be crossposting there for the next period of time. Late arrival: NE Republican blogger Jazz Shaw joins the party.

Update: Michelle Malkin's "Buzzworthy" gives us a nod.

Crossposted at Liberty Pundits and Riehl World View.

Rima Fakih and a cloister of nuns, sisters under the skin?

"Rima Fakih is Gorgeous; That is All," The Anchoress — aka Elizabeth Scalia — titled her definitive and richly-linked take on the swirl of frothy and sometimes frothing-at-the mouth commentary that followed in the wake of the crowning of Muslim beauty Miss Michigan as Miss USA last night. AP photo.

"The contrast between images of the Catholic American women [below] and the Muslim American woman [above] of your previous post leaves me speechless" we twittered The Anchoress this afternoon, referencing her two latest blogposts. "Write about it!," she twittered back. "I hadn't thought of it, and must dash out to volunteer at hospital."

"A Plethora of Nun Pictures," was the title of Scalia's post immediately following the one about Rima Fakih's triumph (top photo). Here the photographer catches a moment in the "solemn professions" of a group of Benedectines of Mary, "really great pictures giving a good sense of the meaning of community and sisterhood."

What does a scantily-clad beauty queen of Lebanese descent have to do with a cloister of fresh-faced nuns habited from head to toe? It has something to do with the promise of the First Amendment's establishment clause, together with the Nineteenth Amendment that granted us the right to vote in this land of opportunity where a woman is free to pursue her own vision of her best and truest self. We used to call this Shining City Upon a Hill a "melting pot," a term in disfavor now among politically correct elites and their fellow travelers in the media who would impose a stultifying identity politics of grievance upon the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. Fortunately, the Michigan community of Arab immigrants where Miss USA 2010 grew up never got the memo, according to this CNN report:

"For once, we're talking about beauty and not terror," said Osama Siblani, publisher of The Arab-American News, in Dearborn, Michigan, who knows Fakih and her family.

He and about 150 other Arab-Americans watched the pageant unfold on a 100-inch television screen at La Pita Restaurant in Dearborn, which was packed with her friends …

"This sends a signal that we're part and parcel of this great country … this is a part of being American. The American dream is still alive and kicking. Nobody can tell us that a Muslim cannot make it. Yes, we can make it."

The Anchoress quips, "Who needs 'smart' diplomacy? Bring on the pretty girls!"

Update: Dan Drezner has the last word:

A Very Important Post about …beauty pageant controversies

Update II: "My own response has been reduced to sputtering incoherence," confesses Rick Moran, fed up with "many on the right who have exploded in anger and cries of 'dhimmitude' because a Muslim woman was named Miss USA." So there.

Update III: Michelle Malkin's "Buzzworthy" links!

Update IV: Instalanche! Thank you, Professor Althouse.

Crossposted at Liberty Pundits and Cloven Not Crested.

May murdered baby girls haunt your dreams, Mr. President

The preening perversion of men who would murder children fresh out of their mother's womb for the crime of being born female sickens our heart and soul. Hatred and fear — side by side with love and adoration — of the female of the species is universal throughout all cultures, of course, but common sense would have told Communist Chinese functionaries that killing the girls would lead to a generation of desperate men. Common sense? Unintended consequences? That's never been part of the utopianist statist's palette. They know better than we what's best for us, and our individual hopes and dreams and human nature be damned. Above, Mary Cassatt's "La Toilette," oil on canvas c. 1891, The Art Institute of Chicago.

"May murdered baby girls haunt your dreams, Mr. President," we twittered in horror at the latest brain-dead outrage perpetrated by the current holder of the Leader of the Free World Seat. A horrified, outraged Jay Nordlinger at The Corner explains:

We, the United States, have been having human-rights talks with China. Our side is apparently led by Michael Posner, an assistant secretary of state. I will quote from an Associated Press report:

Posner said in addition to talks on freedom of religion and expression, labor rights and rule of law, officials also discussed Chinese complaints about problems with U.S. human rights, which have included crime, poverty, homelessness and racial discrimination.

He said U.S. officials did not whitewash the American record and in fact raised on its [their?] own a new immigration law in Arizona that requires police to ask about a person’s immigration status if there is suspicion the person is in the country illegally.

I hope I have read that incorrectly, or am interpreting it incorrectly. Did we, the United States, talking to a government that maintains a gulag, that denies people their basic rights, that in all probability harvests organs, apologize for the new immigration law in Arizona? Really, really?

But even as President Obama's mandarins mock the custodians of the Shining City Upon a Hill and insult all humankind and womankind by their unconscionable sit-down with the perpetrators of genocide and gynocide, a new generation of American women "walk softly but carry a big lipstick," as Lori Ziganto writes at Hot Air:

The left hates that phrase and they have ridiculed me for it on more than one occasion. You see, they don’t get it. It’s not surprising, really, as we’ve all known for some time that while the left trots out the For The Women™ meme constantly, they are anything but. The same way that self-avowed modern-day feminists are anything but feminist. In fact, they are diametrically opposed to feminism, by it’s very definition, because their entire agenda is actually harmful to women. This is why I now call them Femogynists and I’m taking the term feminist back.

True feminists are women like Sarah Palin and Nikki Haley. They are the new faces of feminism. That has a great built-in bonus, too — they are far easier on the eyes and exhibit none of that irksome hysterical screeching like the irrelevant and soon to be extinct femogynists. They, and women like them, are coming to the forefront now.

You go, girls!

Updates: Linked in Michelle Malkin's "Buzzworthy"! And the horror continues as Michelle answers the question "Who is Michael Posner, and why is he apologizing to China? Also linked at Memeorandum and in Pundit & Pundette's "Today's recommended reads". Fausta too.

Crossposted at Liberty Pundits and Cloven Not Crested.

These are a few of my favorite things

To cleanse our readers' and our own aesthetic and philosophical palates of the unpleasant taste left over from our previous post on the "slavering maw of socialism," a couple of things we love:

Our Sweet Tiny girl (above) setting herself up in a hunting blind of hostas, keeping an eye on her beloved, Earl Grey, who was having a nip on the terrace nearby.

And what NJ Gov Chris Christie told a whining reporter yesterday:

I came here to govern, not to worry about re-election.

And Amba's concise, terse, pithy assessment* of what Gov Christie said:

Refreshing Honesty. More of this, please!

And Dan Riehl's prediction back on March 28:

The irony, Obama's day in the sun could be over if the fat man in NJ sings! heh!

With states often serving as laboratories for the types of solutions that can catch on nationally, eventually rising to have their day in DC, NJ's Christie looks to be stepping up as something of an anti-Obama in one of the country's bluest states. How several of his current battles play out is worth watching. No doubt GOP political strategists are.

The anti-Obama. What's not to love?

*Amba on Twitter points out it was Randy who posted:

But I second the emotion!

Do I look fat in this Obamacare amendment?

"While investigating the strange odyssey of the missing nude 'posture photos,' I found that the issue is, in every respect, a very touchy matter — indeed, a kind of touchstone for registering the uneven evolution of attitudes toward body, race and gender in the past half century," wrote Ron Rosenbaum in a titillating NYT Sunday Magazine article back in 1995, "The Great Ivy League Nude Posture Photo Scandal." Wellesley alumna Judith Martin, aka Miss Manners, told the author she was "appalled in retrospect" that the college forced the practice on its freshmen, adding "Why weren't we more appalled at the time?" The creepiness of it all came to mind in light of the latest invasions of privacy proposed by the Federal Fat Police (see below).

Rep. Ron Kind (D-WI-3) is ogling the nation's nubile young lovelies. He wants to know the height and weight of all 18-year-olds. For their own good, of course. In a proposed amendment to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare), he ventures where no man should ever go [h/t Red State]:

A bill introduced this month in Congress would put the federal and state governments in the business of tracking how fat, or skinny, American children are.

States receiving federal grants provided for in the bill would be required to annually track the Body Mass Index of all children ages 2 through 18. The grant-receiving states would be required to mandate that all health care providers in the state determine the Body Mass Index of all their patients in the 2-to-18 age bracket and then report that information to the state government. The state government, in turn, would be required to report the information to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for analysis.

"Anorexia (an-oh-REK-see-uh) nervosa isn't really about food. It's an unhealthy way to try to cope with emotional problems. When you have anorexia nervosa, you often equate thinness with self-worth," according to the Mayo Clinic website. Image from "A 2 Z of Health, Beauty and Fitness."

We guess it depends upon what your definition of "children" is. Beyond the fact that such information is none of the creeping nanny state's business, we're betting that if those 18-year-old women get wind of what Big Government is up to, they'll put their vote where their BMI is. It would be a welcome wake-up call in light of the results of a recent Pew "Political Rhetoric Test":

"Socialism" is a negative for most Americans, but certainly not all Americans. "Capitalism" is regarded positively by a majority of the public, though it is a thin majority. Among certain segments of the public -- notably, young people and Democrats -- both "isms" are rated about equally …

Reaction to "capitalism" is lukewarm among many demographic groups. Fewer than half of young people, women, people with lower incomes and those with less education react positively to "capitalism."

Open your eyes, ladies. Rep. Ron Kind and his fellow nanny-staters have revealed the slavering maw of socialism. Let's throw the bums out. Term limits by other means. Dan McLaughlin at Red State points the way:

This, ladies and gentlemen, is government without limits or a sense of personal space. It’s Michelle Obama’s and Ron Kind’s America.

Kind’s district is the classic sort of district that has been safe in years past (it went 51% for John Kerry, 58% for Barack Obama), but is rated D+3 by Charlie Cook, which puts it within reach if the GOP wave this fall rises high enough. If you’d like to help, there are two GOP candidates in the district: two-term State Senator Dan Kapanke has blasted Kind over Obamacare, and … tea party candidate, businessman Bruce Evers. However the party primary turns out, voters in Wisconsin’s Third District will have to decide if they want Uncle Sam ogling their children and nagging them to put down their cheese and bratwurst.

To get your juices flowing in the right direction, take Angela Lash's advice on Twitter:

HAVE YOU SEEN THIS? Tim Burns attacking a 50 ft. Nancy Pelosi jump started my day. LOL

See also Stacy McCain's fact-filled, up-to-the-minute, on-the-scene coverage of our own Scott Brown's guest appearance at a Tim Burns for Congress rally at 1 p.m. today at the Washington County Courthouse in Washington, PA. As Scott Brown and Tim Burns go, so goes the nation?

Update: Blog buddy Stoutcat of Grand Rants follows the logic in the comments:

Well, since they can stay on Mom and Dad's health insurance until they're 26, why not track their BMI until that age, too? What's that you say? They might not like that much intrusion? But it's for their own good, dontcha know!

Update II: We couldn't agree more with Gayle Miller's late mother:

My late mother had an iron-clad rule: "My age and my weight are my own business!" and she never wavered from that.

Crossposted at Liberty Pundits.

Twitter tribes: We few form a multitude

"I feel so out of the loop on Twitter, twittered Darcysport (avatar, above), member in good standing of one of the Twitter tribes or "communities" that float our boat from time to time in a given 24-hour cycle:

Dang work. And sleep. General laziness.

But no, we insisted in response:

Think of it as a relay race.

Relevant passage from Soros-seeded Wikipedia:

During a relay race, members of a team take turns running, orienteering, swimming, cross-country skiing, biathlon, skating [or twittering] parts of a circuit or performing a certain action.

"Actually, a pretty darned good analogy for the way I tweet," we continued:

A couple of intense "communities" whose members drop in and out at all hours.

A rogue's gallery of some of our favorite Twitter partners: amba12, ThadMcCotter, Stoutcat, DanRiehl, MelissaTweets, NorsU, Lash3.

They feed our intellectual appetite with wit and wisdom and political energy and linked references that open worlds of information and insight, pulling back the curtain on what may or may not be "covered" by traditional information sources. Disintermediating the powers-that-be via the internet, we few form a multitude. As Melissa Clouthier (aka MelissaTweets, fifth from left above) put it to her podcast co-host LA Times columnist Andrew Malcolm the other day:

Twitter is the new CNN.

Why? I am getting news not only from major outlets, I’m getting news from regular citizens who load up pictures, ideas, commentary.

Be sure to read the whole thing. Delicious, nutritious food for thought.

Update: Dan Riehl links with a tease: "What Has Everyone All Atwitter?":

Well, one can drop in just about any time and find out what's breaking, and more. It's also increasingly customizable. For a news junkie and blogger, new aps come along all the time. Few of them become true must haves. Twitter is certainly one imo.

Crossposted at Liberty Pundits.

Elena Kagan: Not just another pretty face

We were surprised to find our gut reaction to President Obama's SCOTUS pick Elena Kagan way over in the plus column. We'd been horrified, of course, at some of the things she was reported to have written and said, especially her feeling "sad" at "socialism's decline." What IS it with these brilliant types that they don't get the Darwinian gag response of human beings to being corraled into legislative imperatives designed to force them into acting against their own self-interest? But back to our gut response. Alive, in person at the President's announcement presser she came across as sweet and authentic. Lots of folks twittering about her looks. Understandable, but aren't we sbosed to be beyond that?

Beyond sniping about looks and sexual preferences, as we twittered this morning, we'd love to have a debate between Liz Cheney and Elena Kagan on the meaning for our times and all times of the United States Constitution.

Update: Dan Riehl links:

Dont tell Sissy Willis, she'll be terribly upset.

Crossposted at Liberty Pundits.

Thad McCotter: The Time Greg Gutfeld Ate Reagan's Chicken at Bob Tyrrell's House

"The political libido of a liberal is utterly unrestrained. It's the political libido of a nymphomaniac, at times the political libido of a sex offender, R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. told a giddy Greg Gutfeld & Co. on Red Eye in the wee hours this morning, explaining with customary brio the premise of his new book, After the Hangover: The Conservatives' Road to Recovery:

"… whereas the political libido of a conservative is much more restrained, almost gentlemanly and ladylike, and that's the problem. They need to learn a little bit about activism in politics."

Enter stage right the ladies and gentlemen that take tea:

I like the Tea Party movement …They love freedom, they love limited government, and they're my kind of people.

'Wonder what kind of political libido Mr. Tyrrell would attribute to us Tea Partiers. Hmmm. When it comes to core conservative principles — fiscal responsibility, limited government, free markets — we take no prisoners. But we're partial to persuasion and the power of the ballot box. Brute force isn't our thing, despite the best efforts of Rules-for-Radicals types with the "political libido of a sex offender" like SEIU President and Obama BFF Andy Stern to project their own modus operandi onto us:

We're trying to use the power of persuasion, and if that doesn't work, we're going to use the persuasion of power.

The hangover in the book's title refers to the last several years of the Bush Administration, when Republican politicians spent money "like drunken sailors, and I mean no offense to drunken sailors." The author expanded on the topic in a Washington Times column a few weeks back:

The Bush years witnessed the arrival of the conservative hustler. Sometimes the hustlers were crooks, such as Jack Abramoff. Other times they were the intellectual opportunists who thought they could advance in the kultursmog by tut-tutting established members of the conservative movement. I have in mind such reformed conservatives as the Davidians, David Brooks and David Frum(p).

The Davidians are members in good standing of the effete old guard we call the Northeast Corridor Conservatives, flogged here from time to time. As we wrote in "Freedom Vigil: The keyboard is my pitchfork" recently:

We aren't taking marching orders from inside the Beltway anymore — if we ever did. They're working for us, not the other way around, and if they still don't get it, we're going to make sure they do come November. That's the real story, but the Pauline-Kael bubblers, including Northeast Corridor "Conservatives" like David Frum, lately of AEI, are stuck in the amber of their echo chamber of addiction to power and contempt for extraordinary Americans.

Tyrrell's prescription, from the Red Eye interview, is a breath of fresh air:

In the book I'm talking about the conservatives who snipe at each other, the conservatives who are opportunistic, and those people, they're just doing it to advance themselves, whereas we do have a model of conservatives who've had a productive give and take that in my opinion is kind of a template for the future for conservatives, and that is the way Mark Levin, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh relate to each other. That's the way conservatives should relate to each other. A good-natured give and take. You don't always have to agree, but take an interest in each other, and don't diminish each other.

A final important point from the Washington Times article:

Talk radio, cable talk shows, the Internet, the established conservative think tanks and the magazines of the conservative movement are all flourishing and summoning compelling personalities armed with the tried-and-true ideas of the conservative movement.

The new breed of tried-and-true types is answering the summons. Independent Scott Brown's "surprise" victory restoring the "Kennedy Seat" to the people January 19 was famously the first shot heard. Now a small army of intelligent, articulate, authentically conservative candidates is on the march. We encourage our readers to support the candidates of their choice. We're putting our money and mouth behind three whose victories would, like Brown's win, restore currently stuffed seats to the people:

Sean Bielat for MA District 4 Barney Frank Seat. "Boston Tea Party Fallout: Retire Barney Frank?"

Tim Burns for PA District 12 the late John Murtha Seat. Sisu posts on Tim Burns.

Chuck DeVore for CA District 6 Barbara Boxer Seat. Check out Devore's answer to Sarah Palin's endorsement of primary rival Carly Fiorina.

Term limits by other means. Click on the links to read about the candidates and contribute, and may the best man win.

Note. As President of the Chelsea-by-the-Sea Thad McCotter Fan Club, we are, of course supporting the Michican District 11 incumbent's re-election bid. His twittering leaves all others' in the dust. This from last night:

One for the roadhog: AmSpec -The Time Greg Gutfeld Ate Reagan's Chicken at Bob Tyrrell's House

If we hadn't already fallen hard for Thad when we first set eyes on him on Red Eye just after Valentine's Day, this little rant from something calling itself "Mad At Thad" would have done the trick:

Thad McCotter has became a darling of the extreme right in recent weeks. Whether it be his participation in the Plymouth Township Tea Party or his consistent stops on Fox News, Thad McCotter is aligning himself with the most extreme elements of the Republican Party. He has aligned himself with supply-side, trickle-down economics even as their disastrous effects come to light. He joined a protest that saw venomous hate speech against the President, and, indeed, the whole government of the United States.

Align at will.

Crossposted at Liberty Pundits.

Cinco de Mayo for idiots: It's the Mexican beer, stupid!

Cinco de Mayo was "invented by the Corona beer company to sell beer. It's a manufactured party day," we learned via Twitter — "the new CNN" as Melissa Clouthier calls it — the blogosphere and Google this afternoon. Would it be too much to ask of high school teachers to do a little research before misleading students into believing it's a "Mexican Heritage Day?" Details below.

"Cinco de Mayo isn't a real holiday," twittered radio talkster Vicky Nissen in response to our own retweet of the rightfully-mocked story of those Live Oak High School California high school students who were "sent home for wearing American flag T-shirts" for fear of offending the delicate sensibilities of hot-headed fellow students of Mexican descent. First a little background and then a little perspective. The facts:

Galli says he and his friends were sitting at a table during brunch break when the vice principal asked two of the boys to remove American flag bandannas that they wearing on their heads and for the others to turn their American flag T-shirts inside out. When they refused, the boys were ordered to go to the principal's office.

"They said we could wear it on any other day," Daniel Galli said, "but today is sensitive to Mexican-Americans because it's supposed to be their holiday so we were not allowed to wear it today.

The boys said the administrators called their T-shirts "incendiary" that would lead to fights on campus.

Kind of reminds us of the "scientific research" cited by Iran's first president proving "that women's hair emitted rays that drove men insane." Who knew that T-shirts could drive Mexican-American men insane? Beyond the rank condescension and stupidity of school officials' hair-trigger, politically correct overreaction encouraging students to act out identity-politics grievances — not to mention the offense their behavior represents to the "tens of thousands of American men and women who have died defending this country and for the freedoms we enjoy and our Flag and for what it stands" — Cinco de Mayo is nothing more than "a manufactured party day," as PJ Emeritus notes in the comments at Hot Air:

It was invented by the Corona beer company to sell beer … Mexican Independence Day is Sept 16 – not May 5. The Mexicans don’t even celebrate Cinco de Mayo – AT ALL.

These people need to lighten up. As beer distributor rep Dan Don puts it:

"I want to say it's just like St. Paddy's Day. Then, everybody's Irish, and everybody's Mexican on Cinco De Mayo," the beer salesman said. "It's a big Corona day."

Salud!

Update: The Rhetorican links:

Will the students target Corona Beer next?

Update II: Our friend Mark in the comments alerts us to an excellent piece on the history and significance of the real Cinco de Mayo, "primarily a regional holiday" in Mexico:

Commercial interests in the United States and Mexico have also had a hand in promoting the holiday, with products and services focused on Mexican food, beverages and festivities, with music playing a more visible role as well. Several cities throughout the U.S. hold parades and concerts during the week following up to May 5th, so that Cinco de Mayo has become a bigger holiday north of the border than it is to the south, and being adopted into the holiday calendar of more and more people every year.

Update III: Blog friend Ed Driscoll links:

But there’s no political narrative to shove alcohol-related celebrations into.

Update IV: Joe Hicks at Pajamas Media links in "Multiculturalism Reaches Its Dead End" [If only – Ed]:

Hell, it’s actually only celebrated in one Mexican state, Puebla, and here in the United States the day is just one more excuse for some to get drunk — hardly an event of high cultural meaning.

Crossposted at Liberty Pundits.